I feel that this discussion on digital capture, OCR, XML etc. of exhibition
materials, whilst certainly interesting and useful in its own right, is
rather missing the core problem raised by the original post about how to
get exhibitions online.
I contend that this core problem is methodological, rather than technical;
as is usually the case in temporary exhibitions, it seems that the creation
of the panels was treated as a one-off project, and consequently resulted
in disposable, single-use panels that will be difficult &/or costly to
re-purpose (e.g. for the web).
Exhibiting collections is a *curatorial* process, and the individual
components of the panels are valuable knowledge assets that should be
carefully managed from the outset. It doesn't really matter what format you
store them in, provided you look after them: That means knowing what you
have, where to find it and how to access and use it.
Most of the main commercial collections information systems provide
facilities for saving images, exhibition texts, wall labels etc., but
failing that, a good file management regime can do the job adequately too.
Incidentally, I should point out that I do NOT mean to point an accusatory
finger at Steve Gardam or The British Postal Museum & Archive here -- this
lack of foresight with respect to the preservation and re-use of digital
resources is endemic, both in museums and beyond...
But museums should be setting an example in digital knowledge management;
the core mission of a museum is to both preserve and provide access to its
collections, and that should include its collections of digital knowledge
resources.
Cheers,
T.
At 06:41 AM 27-01-05, you wrote:
>In message
><[log in to unmask]>, Ellis
>Mike <[log in to unmask]> writes
>>
>>The lesson we're all starting to learn is to try and START with all
>>your exhibition text as XML and then you can easily go the OTHER way,
>>repurposing and re-interpreting stuff to web/pdf/etc as you see fit...
>
>This is an approach CIMI was exploring all of ten years ago (using SGML
>- XML hadn't even arrived them). We were looking into ways of marking
>up exhibition catalogues and wall texts using the TEI (Text Encoding
>Initiative) framework, and exploring ways of introducing museum-specific
>markup into TEI so that you could cross-link related resources and do
>context-specific searches (e.g. for personal names) directly on these
>texts.
>
>It's interesting to note that CIDOC is now starting to collaborate with
>the TEI on much the same problem: using the CRM (Conceptual Reference
>Model) to express the museum-specific aspects of an information
>resource. We hope to have a workshop on TEI at the CIDOC conference in
>May.
>
>One interesting question we might explore is why the practical adoption
>of this good idea has been so long in coming. Certainly, the CIMI
>collaborators found the process of marking up in SGML (using the then
>leading-edge Author/Editor program) to be very challenging. Also,
>converting your SGML to various delivery formats was far from
>straightforward: DSSSL was the only standards-based option, and it made
>XSLT look totally trivial. I think things are much easier now, but I
>would be interested to hear other views on the practicability of
>adopting an "XML first" strategy for textual museum resources.
>
>Richard Light
>
>--
>Richard Light
>SGML/XML and Museum Information Consultancy
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